


Idiots

by herbailiwick



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Post Reichenbach, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-29
Updated: 2012-04-29
Packaged: 2017-11-04 13:20:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/394322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/herbailiwick/pseuds/herbailiwick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John misses Sherlock. There's almost no one who understands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Idiots

People don't confront him anymore. They used to, at first. He'd be minding his own business and people with curious faces and words that cut him would come up and bother him, sucking out the little tolerance he had for social contact until he was ready to go home and not move from the telly. 

It was so hard on him that Mycroft had come swooping in with his umbrella and his tie pins. The chivalry of it all had made John want to spit on Mycroft's shoes. He could take care of himself, he'd said with controlled anger. Mycroft had not challenged the statement, but he had asked if he could treat him to a bite. John, sighing, told himself he only accepted because he felt Mycroft still owed him. He didn't really feel like that, though. He knew no one hated Mycroft more than Mycroft, when it came to...what had happened.

They were both creatures of habit, so they began meeting more frequently. 

Today, there's no one with John, though. He sips at his coffee all alone, reading up on current events, which have long stopped including Sherlock Holmes.

He's lonely. Mycroft is alright, but John feels like it's guilt and overprotectiveness that drive Mycroft to want to take care of him. And Harry helps him quite a bit in her unreliable, sloppy ways. 

He's particularly lonely when he's alone in public because even if the papers are quiet, and even if no one comes to his face and asks him about Sherlock anymore, he hears the whispers.

The whispering is worse, he thinks. At least there was a certain thrill to a confrontation with an ill-informed couple or a teenager scared that John might have been in on the misdeeds of Sherlock Holmes the supervillain. With whispers, he just feels untouchable. He sips his coffee and doesn't let his mind dwell on the image of his laughing friend, because his friend is dead and the past isn't something John believes you can build a good present on.

He does want a good present. He wants things to become easier. But it's hard to open up again. He'd used up most of his trust on Sherlock. He still trusts Mycroft some, and Harry a little. But he'd pictured that he'd have much more time with Sherlock.

He had not had enough time with Sherlock at all. 

He kept a few of Sherlock's things. His new best friend won't be Mycroft or Harry, won't be Mike Stamford or Bill. His new best friend is the skull. He finds it's a very good listener, and there are things that only he and the skull understand about Sherlock. 

John sips his coffee and flips the page, aware of the whispers. In a way, it's easier not to see the pity on the faces as he tries to explain that Sherlock was a good man. Other people's resentment of Sherlock was the worst, at first. But now John pities _them_. They don't get it. They can't possibly. 

He remembers how Sherlock's knowledge always alienated him. He knows his knowledge of Sherlock Holmes alienates him from the world too.

That's okay, though. He's seen the battlefield. He misses Sherlock like he missed the war, only more. 

The skull understands that Sherlock wasn't faking anything. Sherlock was real with John, and he was real with the skull.

The whispers of a city full of idiots don't mean a thing when John has the silence of the skull to return home to.


End file.
